#it does feel like cohost has potential

[knifegremliin]

oh, uh. btw. i HIGHLY doubt i will be moving there because tumblr is genuinely the only social media i have ever actually liked, but i did go and sign up for cohost.

it's the same as here but without the extra i (knifegremlin)

[tired-fandom-ndn]

I really think people are in denial about the fact there really *isn't* a solid alternative to Tumblr. There's small websites that kinda allow you the same feeling but it's... not the same. This feels like Livejournal all over again, I guess we can take come comfort that though LJ is pretty broken it's still around? So Tumblr won't disappear soon hopefully.

Yeah, this exactly. Like people keep offering up suggestions, and some of them have potential, but the depressing fact of the matter is that there is no sustainable alternative to tumblr that even feels slightly similar to this site.

Aethy and similar mastodon instances are way closer to twitter, pillowfort is already on its last legs financially, independent blogging and writing sites don't offer the same social aspects tumblr does, and apparently cohost is a strong contender but if a website that has been around for almost 20 years is struggling so badly, I can't see how any other site can survive with the same system.

Not to be a leftist on side but this isn't really about tumblr itself, it's about widespread legal censorship of adult content (mainly targeting sex workers and queer content) and the way that capitalism demands constant growth even when there's none to be found. A site like the old tumblr, promising things like artistic and sexual freedom, just cannot survive while those things are being attacked left and right legally.

[nydescynt]

Looking for the next Twitter but like.. vaguely ethical? Consider cohost.org

My main social media will likely always be Tumblr unless or until it finally dies, but I realize this hellsite isn't for everyone. So if you've escaped here from the sinking ship that is Twitter, but would really prefer a social media site with fewer ball-shaving ads: it's worth keeping an eye on cohost.org!

What is Cohost?

A social media site that (hopefully, potentially) sucks less than all the others. Cohost was created by a small group of dedicated people (the anti-software software club) who have clearly learned from the rise and fall of other sites. It allows for text, images, music, video, gifs, embeds, and (most importantly) memes.

What is the Anti-Software Software Club?

The ASSC helpfully has a whole-ass manifesto laying out the principles of the site! But I know statistically most of you will not click on a link, so here is an audio version of the manifesto I recorded Just For This Post:

What Does It Look Like?

Like this! The site itself feels very Tumblr-inspired, with a few functions + UI concepts pulled from Twitter, and an early-2000s aesthetic. A ton of functionality is still in the works, but what they have so far feels great and very comparable to Tumblr.

Can you say something funny before the post ends?

I leave you with this final bullet point on the 'Behaviors to Avoid' section of their Community Guidelines:

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #16: Answers and Questions

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

LET’S GET TO IT. This month is Q&A: Cohost edition!

“A Q&A again?” Heheh well I don’t have anything to talk about this month ✨ We’re working hard on finalizing the localization! And on porting to consoles! And on secret stuff! You know, the usual!!! Get excited!!! So, Q&A again 💖 And see, I asked questions for Q&As on Twitter. On Tumblr. On Discord. But some new social media platforms have entered the fray. SO.

Welcome to Q&A: Cohost edition. (Follow me on cohost and/or read this post I wrote about why I think cohost is neat teehee) (and follow me on bluesky if you want. I like it way less though. Sorry bluesky)

@ItsMeLilyV asks:

One of the bits of advice that gets tossed around by indie devs is to avoid making RPGs, especially for your first few games, because they tend to be large in scope, difficult to prototype, and easy to underestimate.

Was this ever a fear for you in making START AGAIN, or In Stars and Time? Did you take any special precaution to keep these games within a scope you could handle, and did you learn tricks from START AGAIN that carried over to ISAT when in came to keeping things manageable? Thank you!! ✨

I had no idea that was a piece of advice given, but yep, that makes a lot of sense! Since I didn’t know, I went in blissfully aware, teehee.

I will say that I am familiar with working on big projects from working on comics, and with seeing big webcomic artists always mention to never start with your magnum opus… And I could tell ISAT had the potential to be way bigger than I imagined, which is why I decided to start with creating the prologue to get used to RPGMaker as well as making games. Kind of a pilot of sorts!

Again, thanks to comics, I know to keep my scope pretty small, because even if you keep it small it WILL balloon into something way bigger than you thought. Just for the prologue, I imagined it’d be a 20mn game, and it’s easily a 2-3h one! Keep your scope small!!!

As for tricks, when I catch myself thinking “wow what if I added this cool thing”, I try to always keep in mind those two things: 1. How long will it take to implement (including bug testing), and 2. Does it add something important to the game. I know we always want to add a fishing game, or a fun minigame, but do you Need It. Does it add something substantial to the story, to the Themes. Or are you just adding it because you like fishing games. Which is a valid reason, but also, maybe just make a fishing game instead. You are not the Yakuza series!!!! You are a small indie gamedev!!!! Think about you in 4 months who has to fix all the fishing game bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@stem asks:

how is it to have a piece of art that's basically done (as far as i understand) that you can't share yet? like how do you personally bide the time until it's finally ready to release, or is it not really a challenge to wait? :0c

It’s so weird!!! The game has been done for so long!!! I’m very glad I asked some friends to playtest the game, so I could at least get some feedback before the game is out… In some ways it feels like the game will be done twice: once back when I finished making the game, and once when the game actually comes out. It’s just a very strange experience. Sometimes people tell me they’re excited to find out more about this story beat, or about this character, and a part of me is like… Wait, haven't you played the game? Oh, yeah, it’s not actually out. Guess you’ll find out later.

EDIT: My god. I just checked on my private devlog for when I completed the Alpha of ISAT. It was in August of last year (I lay down on the floor and look at the ceiling) (I still had to finish all the illustrations so really the game was Done Donezo in October but still…)

anon asked:

What role did Armor Games play in creating the final product?

SO MANY THINGS. Here are some of them: support when it comes to porting/marketing/social media/localization, feedback on the game and how to make it better, community guidance, testing support, QA/internal testing… The game couldn’t be the way it is without them.

For more small details, I have a weekly meeting with my producer, Dora! We talk about the game and how everything is going. A couple months back, I also was checking in with the internal QA team fairly often to fix any remaining bugs. They also helped me find ISAT’s additional programmer, Isabella, and she is a godsend because coding is hard. They also take care of communicating with press, finding more opportunities to showcase the game in conventions, talking with the localization/porting teams… I am probably forgetting a thousand little things they did to help out!!! THEY’RE SO GOOD OK

Anon asked:

So obviously the skills/spells/what have you are based off of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Did you design each "type" to be like a certain style? Rock being heavy damage and defense buffs, scissors being speed and quick attacks, like that?

Absolutely! I just went with the obvious. Rock is physical damage, defense focused, Scissors is swords, attack focused, and Paper is magic, mind focused. It was fun to develop a spell system around those! I’m excited for people to find out more about Craft…

@nickshutter asks:

I really loved START AGAIN (streamed it for a small handful of friends) and was super happy to hear about a follow-up! The cast is so much fun and their personalities are really well-balanced—did any of the characters change pretty drastically from their initial conception during development of the game?

I’m so glad you streamed it with friends… I hope you had a good fun time…

And for sure! Isabeau and Mirabelle were pretty set from the get go (himbo and shy wallflower), but Odile started as more of a gentle teacher type, even if I very quickly went the snarky old lady route. Siffrin and Bonnie were harder to pin down– I wasn’t sure how to portray Siffrin’s despair in the prologue, and started showing them more overtly depressed, but I thought it’d be Very Yummy to have them show a happy facade to their friends. And then, for ISAT, I had to figure out what a non-depressed Siffrin would be like, for the first couple acts of the game before the despair sets in. As for Bonnie, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what they’d be like, what kind of kid they were, what their relationship with everyone else would be like, and then I thought about what their past would be like and then their characterization was set in stone. Sometimes you need to figure out One Thing to unlock a character’s brain. I’m very excited for everyone to find out more about each character in ISAT!

@SuperBiasedGary asks:

What games (or other media) lit a fire under you to create your own?

It could be stuff you liked so much it inspired, something you found frustrating because you felt an itch to do it differently, or something that made you realise humans make things and you could be one of them.

I found a lot of indie games inspiring, but I think Umineko might’ve been the one that made me go… Oh, anyone can just make a massive video game narrative. And you can make it very simple, with kinda goofy sprites, and still manage to make an incredibly touching story!

As for frustrating games that lit a fire under me, I think I’d say in general, I found issue with the classic trope of the “main character helps people and doesn’t get anything back”. What often happens in some games is that you help NPCs with their problems, sometimes helping them with very intense, complicated problems! For a very long time! And, in exchange, you get… A cool item? A nice new skill? And that’s it?

I know this might be complicated to implement on a narrative perspective, but I remember playing Persona 5, and your character just went through a very harrowing experience (like, oh, being INTERROGATED AND TORTURED BY THE POLICE) and you help your friends during social links, and they go “thanks for your help! Bye~” like WHAT ABOUT ME. WHAT ABOUT MY PROBLEMS. CAN YOU GIVE ME A HUG

So on a certain level, I wanted a game where instead of the characters around you having problems, the main character also has problems. And is subconsciously screaming “CAN YOU PLEASE NOTICE I HAVE PROBLEMS AND GIVE ME A HUG.” And hopefully, the characters notice. Winks

Hm. I do want to say I wrote most of the prologue/ISAT during the pandemic, and I felt very lonely and not supported. But then guess what. I told my friends about how I felt. And most of them told me they had no idea, and vowed to support me more. And now I’m closer to them. So the moral of this answer is, yeah, it’d be nice if people noticed, but also, you need to tell people when you’re feeling bad. LOOKS AT SIFFRIN

Anon asked:

Is there a song you listen to in order to put yourself in the sasasa/ISAT mindset?

I have a whole playlist baybee. Before you ask: there aren’t any hidden meanings behind those song choices. It’s about the Mood, and also my personal tastes in music I listen to when I need to concentrate. I like songs that go WUB WUB

 In no particular order, here are five random songs I played on repeat when making the prologue:

Future Club (Arcade Version) by Perturbator (in bold because this was THE song I listened to on repeat. I believe I gave it to Lindar for inspiration lol)

Arcades by C2C

Wake Me Up by Para One

The First Wish by DROELOE

Les Enfants du Paradis by World’s End Girlfriend

And here are five random songs I played on repeat for In Stars and Time:

Down by Chloe x Halle

Nonsense Bungaku by Eve

Non-Breathe Oblige by PinocchioP

Gentle Heart by Jamie Paige

Ready For The Floor by Hot Chip

It’s interesting, the songs I listened to for the prologue are generally more heavy and frenetic, while the ones for ISAT are more hopeful… I made sure to listen to more lively songs for ISAT, since that’s the feeling I wanted to give off…

That’s all the questions I have! In other, non related ISAT news, I have started a new project and having a lot of fun. It’s a visual novel this time. I’m hoping to get some screenshots ready in the next few months, but also I’m taking it easy on this one. If it takes years with many breaks in between to get it done, it’s fine. What matters to me right now is the process!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[pb-dot]

Introducing: The Thereafter Release Newsletter

Big news everybody! As of today, I open up for subscriptions to the Thereafter release newsletter, which is the method I have chosen to release my serial novel Thereafter. The first chapter is slated to be released on May 1st at 13:00 GMT, with subsequent chapters coming out on the 1st and 15th every month until I change the schedule or the story is done. Back-of-the-book-brief and a bit of a Q&A below the cut

The year he turned 13, Michael Sørstrand saved the world of the Molefolk from the tyranny of the Lightlord and his armies. It’s been mostly downhill for him after that. Now, 20 years later, Michael finds himself spirited away by magic yet again. The world he finds himself in is stranger and more chaotic by a long shot than the serene caves of the Molefolk. Something defying description has destroyed the world of the Molefolk and countless other magical worlds. The survivors and refugees of these innumerable worlds that have banded together in the ramshackle town of Therafter, built from what parts of their worlds they could salvage. It is here they have called upon Michael to once again take on the mantle of hero to provide hope and inspiration for the disparate masses of survivors. The good news? The wizards and warlocks in charge of Thereafter have managed to summon three other heroes through the void between worlds. The bad news? They’re all messed up in their own, unique ways, and they don’t play particularly well with others, either. Now, Michael and his fellow ex-heroes must rediscover what heroism they once had, find peace with each other and themselves, and ask what it means to be heroes in an imperfect world. They’ll have their work cut out for them. The city of Thereafter is rife with desperate crime and runaway magic, and the calamity that shattered the countless worlds is still out there, somewhere.

Q: Is there any cost associated with subscribing to the story of Thereafter?

A: Subscribing to the Thereafter story release newsletter is free and will remain free for the duration. If I get enough subscribers that staying on the buttondown free plan becomes unfeasible (100+ subscribers), I will open a patreon or similar crowdfunding page to help pay for the costs associated with the upgrade to a paid plan.

Q: Why are you sending this story out there for free?

A: At a point in my work on the first draft of His Impossible Brushstrokes I realized that I love writing too much to put writing entirely on pause while I edit Brushstrokes and The Clockwork Boy. Rather than get started on yet another manuscript to try to sell to an open-minded indie publisher, I decided to just get some of my writing out there.

Q: Why Buttondown?

A: I did some light research on the topic of newsletter services, and found Buttondown's approach to be the most promising for a small operation like mine. The first tier of paid plans is also more reasonable than what substack can offer.

Q: Does Thereafter have an age limit?

A: As I'm not a children's developmental psychologist, I feel ill-equipped to answer this question. I will however say that Thereafter is a story intended for mature audiences, both in that coarse language and references to sexual acts as well as not-insignificant descriptions of violence feature prominently, but also in that the feeling of being an adult and the often painful contrast with the potential of youth is a pivotal part of the narrative. As such, I suggest "adulthood" as the recommended reading age.

Q: Will you tag potentially upsetting material?

To the best of my ability, yes. I can't guarantee I'll catch every single one, but I will do my best, and I'll do my best to amend any glaring omissions in the archived posts.

Q: Speaking of archival, how will that work?

Buttondown archives every mail sent out, and I will post archived chapters to my Cohost under the tag Thereafter Chapters a week after they go out. This way, the Newsletter is the primary source for new chapters, while allowing for multiple ways of back reading depending on individual preferences.

Q: What's your stance on fanworks, remixes, and similar works?

Thereafter is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike license, which is to say that you're free to make works based on or remixing anything in it, provided you do attribute the source, make no money off it, and make your work available under the same license. On a less legalese level, I adore fanworks, but I will personally not read fanfiction of my work as I'm worried about picking up ideas, concepts or interpretations from these subconsciously. I should also mention that I am not super strict about these things, just smack a Thereafter tag in there (and maybe @ me if you feel brave and cool) and we're gravy.

Q: How might your readers interact with you and the community?

Buttondown does not feature a comment section to the best of my knowledge, but I encourage anyone who has thoughts or something to say about the chapters to give the #Thereafter tag here or on cohost some love. If you have questions or a message for the author, contact me here on Tumblr, or on the aforementioned Cohost. I respond to tagged posts, Asks, DMs if we're moots, or you seem legit, the whole bag.

Q: Would you fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?

Ok, this is getting silly, time to wrap it up. (The 100 duck-sized horses, easily. Horses are flesh machines made to break in stupid ways, ducks remember being dinosaurs and giving them a chance to relive the glory days seem like a massive mistake.)

[the-mechanica]

This past year has really been the first time in the 20 years that I've been writing fanfic that I've worried about my existence being entirely wiped off the face of the internet. Btw the attack on Ao3 last year, the enshittification of Twt and Tumblr, and the threat of KOSA and the proliferation of AI, it really truly does feel like fascists are trying to cut marginalized folks and creatives off from each other and potential work. Leaving nothing but homogenized christofascist sludge in their wake. That being said, I'm not leaving tumblr. I know the Apex community here is small, but it's also the only place I've been able to carve out a space in fandom at all. I have always been a punk, defined by my insistence on anticonsumerism, and my existence as a queer trans trauma survivor and swer. I understand if other people want to leave, but I've been on tumblr longer than any other social media platform at this point. I may have not been Mech, but I've been here, and I've been writing and posting fic on archive since 2017. Admittedly, I don't post much art here, and I'm darkly sure that my fic has been scraped already otherwise (have fun with all those 'demonio's and 'girlie's in there). However I will be trying to nightshade anything original I post going forward. I am thoroughly against AI, and I will personally mail fanfic out from a PO box if I have to. Back in the old days, me and my friends would print out fic and staple it in a corner to pass around at lunch (so it looked like schoolwork). That being said, I am also aware of the weird book binding etsy shit and want to spell out: NEVER PAY TO HAVE MY WORK BOUND, IF YOU WANT IT BOUND, ASK ME AND YOU MIGHT GET IT FOR FREE. NEVER PAY ANYTHING FOR FANFIC. Anyway, all of this to say that while I am on Bluesky and will possibly start a Cohost, I will be trying to maintain this blog. I only have it queued for the next month at any given moment anyway. If you are still here, thank you.

[syb-la-tortue]

I'm so sorry to hear about your account! Your bonus lore in the tags has long been my favorite thing about following you here. (Unfortunately for my ability to view your art, I had to bail out of Twitter a while back for my own good — and the site is totally unusable without an account now, even following your source links directly. :( )

I hope there is a way to restore your Tumblr without too much additional headache. In case there isn't (or maybe even if there is) and you'd like somewhere you can tag ramble, may I recommend Pillowfort ( https://www.pillowfort.social/ )? It is like a hybrid of Tumblr and LiveJournal, and it's user-funded so it can host adult content without having to appease advertisers. Not only does it support tag rambles and long-form posts, but there's also per-post flagging for adult content — so users can filter without having to rely on tagging conventions.

yeahhh I'm really sad to have lost all the tags and headcanon posts too, I had a backup of my whole blog made just after the first purge but I didn't think of making a new one since, which obviously was a mistake as I shouldn't have felt safe here...

so far I haven't heard back from tumblr support so I really don't hold much hope at this point for getting it back u_u

I got a pillowfort account back in the day (SybLaTortue over there too) but I never really got to use it (everything was still new and messy back then and it didn't feel that safe a place, idk if that changed?) and starting anew somewhere is always rough... would love to hear more opinions about it (and other platforms! Cohost is another that I thought might have potential?), bit like I heard of many creators starting to post over on Bluesky before starting to crosspost there myself, I'm a bit nervous jumping into a new place if I don't see a few familiar names around haha

[fox-flux]

incredibly stupid physics problems

(crossposting from cohost)

i posted this in the secret fox flux $4 discord channel last night and it reveals A Problem

i mean, a problem besides the barrel's layering being kind of dubious

the pistons stop trying to extend as soon as they're blocked. and here, you may notice, the one extending left pushes the slime a little bit before giving up. this turns out to be caused by a combination of:

the piston is "moving", but it's not using the normal motion machinery (obviously), so it doesn't actually have any velocity.

when object A tries to push object B, if it determines that object B is moving away from it faster than A is moving, it doesn't bother. i don't remember what specific problem this was meant to solve, but it does make intuitive sense — if i'm pushing a boulder down a hill then it's just going to roll away from me and i am going to accomplish nothing. if i let the push happen, i'd make B move even faster (however briefly) which is silly.

as long as the slime is walking towards the piston, everything is fine. but the slime immediately notices it's blocked on one side, turns around, and starts walking the other way. now the slime has a leftwards velocity, but the piston has zero velocity, so the piston thinks the slime is speeding away from it. but that isn't happening, and the slime is still there, so the piston thinks it's now blocked and stops extending.

love it. chef kiss. pushing objects is the hardest thing in the world. anyway i guess i can think of two potential solutions here

① delete the special case for a pushee moving away. checking velocity in the middle of the (hairy) push code is already kind of weird, and it's only done for this specific case. it also shouldn't matter; even if we push something slightly this frame, if it really is moving away from us, then it should be beyond our reach next frame anyway.

i suspect this is a leftover from an older and vastly more complicated iteration of the push code that tried to conserve momentum and whatnot — in which case, doing this even for a single frame would have made A and B look like a single unit, combined their momentum, and given both the same velocity, which means B slows down. so that's bad. but that was an endless nightmare of increasingly obscure interactions so i eventually gave up and scrapped it all. the current implementation won't let you simulate newton's cradle, i guess, but that's not the kind of game this is so whatever?

on the other hand, if i'm wrong and this is still important in some exceptionally obscure case, it would be bad to remove it! exciting.

(if you're curious: what i do now is give lexy — or other push-capable actors — a maximum push mass, and then when she tries to push something, i scale her movement down proportional to how much she's pushing. for example, rubber lexy's push capacity is 8, and a wooden crate weighs 4, so she moves at half speed when pushing one crate and at zero speed when pushing two. i think if a sliding crate hits another one now, they'll both just move at the first one's original speed, but friction skids everything to a halt fast enough that it mostly doesn't come up.)

② give the piston a fake velocity to fool the check. i might want to do this anyway for stuff like climbing, where the player is moving but is considered to have zero velocity because it's being done manually. but lying like this feels like it'll come back to bite me somewhere down the line.

anyway this is just the sort of thing i bumble into occasionally. hope it's interesting. i should probably go try to fix it now

[dwtsfun]

Dancing with the Stars Season 5 Week 1: Rewatch

We're back for a new season rewatch. Just a few updates. First, Samantha is on maternity leave, so Drew Lachey is handling cohost duties with Tom. I remember Drew being really quick witted as well and playing off of Tom real well (probably what happens being a younger brother and working in a boy band as a teen and young adult). Also, the premiere was split up into 2 nights. The women were on night 1 while the men were on night 2. I believe there was a third show that week as there was an elimination on the first week. Anyway, with all of that said, let's get into the show.

Night 1

Jennie and Derek- Cha-cha (Judges' Score=21, My Score=7)- Derek was so young back then. This is so wild seeing baby face Derek again. Jennie was really good. Her technique was clean. I was especially impressed with her arms. She places them so well. Jennie's musicality was very good. It did not feel like she was struggling to dance with the music. Her legs can use more work. She can be stronger in her legs, but she is such a diamond in the rough. Confidence will be key for her. And if I remember correctly, that was their biggest obstacle.

Josie and Alec- Foxtrot (Judges' Score=16, My Score=6)- So there is definitely potential there for Josie. She was elegant and she had a lot of personality (which is something that models do tend to struggle with). But she does lack a lot of strength and therefore, the control that she needed was not there. I also agree that her feet weren't great. I do think Len was a little harsh with her though because it wasn't terrible. I wish she had gotten a second dance. She looked so defeated after Len spoke and you can tell that she was so excited to get out there and perform.

Sabrina and Mark- Cha-cha (Judges' Score=26, My Score=9)- Babyface Mark. Omg. This is so wild. This is still one of the best cha-chas that I have ever seen on the show. The surgical precision of her feet was out of this world. Her musicality???? Goodness. Every line. Every foot placement. Her legs. Her arms. Everything was perfect. I honestly liked the hip hop. It was a tasteful amount to me. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10 is because it is week 1. That's literally the only reason.

Marie and Jonathan- Foxtrot (Judges' Score=21, My Score=6)- Marie is such a great performer. Now her technique left much to be desired. Marie has so many things going for her though. She does have nice lines. She is confident and comfortable performing in live shows. She's got good musicality. She is super charismatic. And she has a desire to improve and be better.

Mel and Maks- Cha-cha (Judges' Score=24, My Score=9)- This was an amazing dance as well. I actually don't think that it got the love that it deserved. The technique was so good. The energy was high. It wasn't as good as Sabrina, but they were right underneath.

Jane and Tony- Foxtrot (Judges' Score=24, My Score=7)- I was quite impressed with this dance. I don't remember Jane on this show as much as I remember everyone else from this season, but this was very good. She was so elegant and posture was so good. Her turns were kinda not great and it wasn't as smooth as I personally would've liked for a foxtrot, but it was still very good.

My Rankings and Scores Out of 30:

1 Sabrina and Mark- 27 2 Mel and Maks- 25 3 Jane and Tony- 23 4 Jennie and Derek- 21 5 Marie and Jonathan- 20 6 Josie and Alec- 17

So the women set the bar extremely high. I don't think the men (outside of Helio) measured up, but I'm excited to get to their night. I will be back later on today with the dances for the men.

[hanzi83]

Jerry Springer Like Society

It is one of these being written late at night/early in the morning because there are always topics that fuel me and I get to carried away having these thoughts and envisioned conversations in my head about how to explain my fucking point and then when all of these ideas and potential rants I want to go on, I become unfulfilled with not being able to jot all these thoughts down and by the time I want to write shit down, I might not feel as fueled, so I know before I go into this diatribe, it will be another case of scattered brain shit plus I have to put disclaimers that not everything I write or say is an official fact, I will admit I take patterns that I see over and over and then try to analyze that shit even if my style is not for everyone but the inspiration for this blog is the legacy of Jerry Springer and I remember I was never fully into it, because it felt like even more of a parody then the show that parodied it, you know that show Night Stand with the cohost Dick Deidrick, but I would watch here and there, I used to actually dig it when they had some genuine shit on there but even as a wrestling fan back then, which is funny me saying this, but this was way too over the top and transparent for my taste.  So I was reminded of different clips, any fandom you are part of online, Jerry Springer was involved in some way with all of them, so it is like twitter does a best of the show or celebrity and post it online as we sit there as sitcom characters reminiscing as the clip concludes but then you have  some people calling out Springer for what he helped normalize, because for some reason some people think normalizing and catering to the racism, misogyny, homophobia is completely okay and you shouldn’t get in trouble for tasteless shit because it is just entertainment, and I used to have that mind frame, and I don’t just align with any establishment liberal who will make that point while doing their own shit that is dirty because everyone in the system has some baggage that will be used against them. Anyways, I am seeing all these clips of him and forgot how over the top and really edgy it was, or at least perceived edginess because it doesn’t seem like the establishment’s type of entertainment despite being the establishment itself, but we are not supposed to point that shit out. So the reason why I wanted to attempt to write something competent about this, I don’t think it is going too well because anytime I attempt to sound like I am smart, it always backfires. I don’t think I am smart in the traditional sense and that is fine but we as a society give ourselves a pat on the back for not being like the entertainment was in the late 90’s and early 2000’s because we clean up the actual television and movies and normally when the establishment might embrace diversity or inclusion, moreso diversity more so than inclusion, it is normally meant for the other system shills online to manipulate the narratives to gain favor for the elite and trying to make people more regressive. But to me, my personal opinion is that the entertainment we have consumed over the last 30 years have manifested into our reality where we are the reality show, the entire show is sports entertainment. It has elements of Howard Stern Show, Jerry Springer and WWE. Now this is where it gets tricky because there are countless examples and angles I can connect with this,  I don’t compile information of what is put out there because it becomes too much for my brain to retain, I normally learn about shit and think when I need the information, magically I can think of it and suddenly the mental state unloads a bunch of information, they extract it. I will fully admit I am not the smartest person on this planet, and it has become clear when you look at the decisions I have made for the majority of my life. But the thing is when I proclaim I am someone who has been dumbed down and didn’t know how to think, most people would feel embarrassed and are afraid to feel vulnerable because as soon as you show any weakness, the never ending vultures who scout shit, will pile on and drive you crazier. But the reason why I can state this and not give a shit as much about how people, at this point, will perceive me is because I can admit that I have been easily manipulated like a lot of people,  because if I was born into this world and didn’t want to seem less than smart, I would go with what society or the media told me, because these people are experts, but if you asked me “Can you explain why earth is round” I could regurgitate the scientist shit that I have heard repeated and even if that is true, I am only siding with it because that is the fact, which is why if someone else comes along and uses shoddy science or some alternate shit, people will then gravitate, people who gravitate from ideology to ideology,  are people who are in the same boat as me and don’t know how to express it because it is easier to seem like you are with the smartest people but still not knowing. If I had to force a pop culture reference, and since I am not up to date with the latest pop culture shit, but a lot of us feel like Joey from Friends when his smarter friends are talking about history etc, so we have to buy an encyclopedia so we can seem smart. And there are genuine people who do want to educate people but a lot of them from what I see, don’t have patience for people being stupid but it is like why would you want to be a thought leader and an educator if you can’t deal with people asking you a lot of questions, and sometimes I think these purity test mother fuckers out there enjoy having the knowledge and you savor it but then if someone says stupid shit then you want to just shit on them. I am talking about funded accounts, actual genuine people who legit don’t know any better and I can empathize with that, but a lot of the propped up figures on social media and online are more my issue because those people are definitely paid to act fucking dumb while not wanting to be bothered since they have to pose an expert but you don’t want your kayfabe broken. This is how I view this entire discourse world we live in. And sometimes I feel like smart people who boast about it nonstop, don’t even know how to explain shit to a dumbed down person, being smart should make you realize you might need to dumb it down to get the message to the masses. But then again what do I know,  I am not exactly smart so I should just expect you to know all the answers. 

So when I think about shit like the Jerry Springer show, and people thinking we are in a better society today than yesteryear, it becomes laughable, but if you don’t focus on specific individuals and you actually  look at all in a grand view, you can’t see how our world is like the Jerry Springer show, Howard Stern Show, or Sports entertainment. Jerry Springer would have the most random and low brow storylines, and that literally gets propped up and we established the villains, and we let the villain run amok until Jerry has to reveal we got an opinion from that person’s family member or friend and now we have that with a lot of the villains, like we have Elon Musk and Tim Pool playing villains then we then bring out someone from their life to expose them for being hypocrites and they don’t care, Steven Crowder working an angle where him treating his wife like shit, and having that long list on his resume of what he has done that makes him a hypocrite. I know we are supposed to call the villains out but you are willing to lie to your base and act like this is not what Crowder wanted exposed, what exactly is gonna happen to the fucking guy? Nothing. He might leave the publication he is part of but he will rebrand. But how do we in society not see that we are manifesting shit and making our world a fucking entertainment reality show. People online want to be the studio audience and hopefully they will have Jerry come to their side in the audience to ask a question or make an edge lord comment, people are constantly boasting about how progressive shit is but it feels like we are regressing and we don’t realize it. We constantly have people say dumb shit for the studio audience online to laugh at how stupid this person is, and we then make them the star, we take the concept of the marketing behind William Hung and amplified that shit on some energy drink that some MMA person is promoting mixed with the cocaine stash from most of these billionaire mixed with some super serum and we have repeated it, and everyone wants to do viral shit even if they are taking L’s, because it creates nonstop profited off discourse. It will keep going over and over. The guest on the talk show who doesn’t have anything positive to say other than screaming shit out would represent what MTG is kind of doing in these hearings and it will get worse, and one day soon there will be violence in these sports entertainment places the same way you see on that Jerry Springer show, there will be another mentally ill and disabled people going viral so we can make them modern day wack packers. And we really have to be on this high horse about being better than the previous generations. I have never seen an era be so forced to cater to people who consumed edgy entertainment and didn’t get to live out their fantasies so now they are in west world where they are living out their fantasy of what they want to become. It just puts it in perspective how much this world is literally manifested entertainment. We have used that power plus there could be prominent funding for shit like this. And the people who introduce these people to the public sphere have to cut all ties so they don’t have to admit they cosigned the entertainment, like how Vlad TV will shit on Charleston White, why do people who end up getting platformed by him ending up having this negative trajectory. We don’t want to realize our entertainment has been funded by government agencies. I feel when we take situations about the sports entertainer and their resume as the defining issue of the systemic problem, it feels like it gets more coverage than actual people who are not as known, or don’t have that clout, so we tell ourselves we are holding these people accountable but then it always goes to the entertainment portion because we need nonstop comedy because this world hasn’t had enough of that, you can’t even be funny in the most realistic and genuine way now, you have to cater to different sides, the right wing will only think whatever they agree with will be funny and same with certain sections of the left, they are willing to throw their guard whenever a celeb is showing liberal leaning bias but we don’t think that is possible for the normalized right wing behavior. 

That is why when someone like Lance Storm, who chimes into the wrestling takes to downplay racism in WWE and use the justification of bad tasting television is not illegal, but wouldn’t there be some case if there was consequences for someone who pushed back against these racist stereotypes, I am not specifying Lance as a main example, but his was the most recent tweet from him to defend WWE from tasteless television, like people like him want credit for acting like they denounce that kind of thing but then don’t see how racist stereotypes were implemented into the systemic programming, kind of like a systemic initiation, of having to get hazed, but now the talents themselves might not do it. That’s why these companies probably hire social media personalities to do the mental hazing by constantly creating chaos and bullying other cogs and pretend that cog is the real villain because they are famous, while these other shit head cogs are being funded by the billionaires, that is what my trolls used to do it me, they think they could prod a mentally unstable person being fucked with, and because I know there is more behind just basic trolling and it is designed to drive me insane by mocking me and bringing up how the show treats me, they want an extreme reaction and I would give it to them and they act like they are the victims because they are the “customer” so they are always right, but when they are given incentive to do that shit. So how can I not think this tasteless entertainment that has spiraled into the personal lives of these people is not rooted in government propaganda or fundamentalist mafia level shit, that is why they limit the offense for WWE, because we will all just laugh at the racist ideas, some will love them and some will mock the idea of how shitty these are, but I guess the wrestling community can only recognize government propaganda when it comes from Saudi Arabia, that is a a western speciality, that shit can only be problematic and agenda filled if it comes from a foreign entity or maybe something to with a liberal agenda. Then for some reason you throw hip hop under the bus before any other entertainment as the most destructive entertainment out there. If we actually explained the possibilities of what kind of shit these institutions organize and partake in, the conversation would be a little bit different, you notice how the conversation around this racist fiasco with WWE isn’t to have characters to counter this shit and actually have more substance, actually allowing performers in kayfabe to acknowledge this industry has ties to racism, misogyny, homophobia, and some of the homophobia implemented is from other closeted self hating human beings who would rather use his power to generalize and alienate a community because they don’t want to look inward that they are that way. Like if you are closeted, nothing wrong with it because maybe you don’t want to deal with scrutiny but when it comes from people who are powerful and have a Tony Soprano complex, and you are not dealing with your issues and you use it to punish people, then yeah some shit needs to be fucking analyzed. We still live in a very misogynistic world within wrestling, where the effort is put toward purposely sabotaging women in particular, because the discourse is now the storyline if more sports entertainment accounts who are posing as experts to tell you why women don’t deserve more time or more character development. WWE/AEW shills will shit on someone like Trinity for going to Impact, maybe someone wants to have some good creative before they sign to a big company again, plus acting like Impact and other smaller companies are not feeder systems to the bigger companies is hilarious, so they know she will eventually go there but the shills have to even sabotage that shit because they are hateful she isn’t going there fast enough, why should any woman want to go if these are the kind of shills the system has hired, like these people play with other people’s careers and the only women they do back, are ones they have personal relationships with or maybe they stop by at their group chat so the deviants can act horny on main for them. Especially when that is how some people who are shills market the women solely because they don’t have any ideas on how to create compelling women characters. Impact isn’t always the best booked show, but they have more character development for people there than what AEW does, because instead of using this time where talent is not all there as far as big male names, they wouldn’t dare take a chance to get more women storylines and character development on the show. Even with this Collision and Dynamite storyline, this is not gonna be something to make talent better, it will be fueled by the sports entertainers online to relive Smackdown vs Raw and basically declare Dynamite with Elite/BCC the Triple H brand and Collision with CM Punk, the Smackdown 6 brand. The effort is put into rebooting that shit instead of coming up with better ways to use the women properly. Like what are AEW shills gonna write for Trinity that will be compelling more so than what Impact does for her? She has a big ass? More worked shoot shit with Britt Baker? The effort goes into creating more problems than actually coming up with solutions. Attitude era brain has ruined a lot of people, because now instead of saying that on a grand view, there are big plans, we have to make it seem the filler is filled with down time so we create more discourse, like why would you want all these wrestlers to do attitude era shit where they all interact and you blow through matches, like I am glad someone like Joe is not interacted with Bryan or Punk etc, because those moments shouldn’t just be throwaways. We are putting more effort into watering shit down like the attitude era than we are for solutions for booking errors that don’t need to actually exist, they have been made to exist. Like wanting a new TBS champion because maybe the current one has not been booked the best and maybe the whole undefeated streak and being the only champion will put hindrance on her career growth if the character doesn’t deal with struggle and becoming more aggressive and meaner since the streak will be done. So when people don’t have any other booking ideas other than just keep her undefeated, I really don’t think those kinds of people actually care for the actual division and how to grow it but they just want their favorite to have super Cena booking. You have to remember other employed accounts online will only back you up and cosign your matches etc if they get a piece of the action. It is like a fantasy league and when you have more people doing that, then how can any of these products grow, that shit has seeped into politics and other forms of entertainment. We are that exploitative with it. I know I am all over the place, but basically this is examples of how we want to keep patting ourselves on the back for thinking we are acting progressive but people with power have control to still disguise regression so it is constantly existing in the public sphere. I hate the notion of the dangerous shit that has been done in these industries, after shaming us after the Benoit shit where people were not used to the watered down nature etc, but then they start doing unsafe shit over the last decade and then the wrestlers ensure us they know better and they can handle it, people were alarmed by that Cody headshot back in 2019 and people were concerned, they tried to say it was gimmicked, and more of this shit became normal with unsafe shit, and people seem fine with it in the industry so now you trained the audience to embrace it, and now industry dipshits and ones affiliated are gonna blame the fans solely when none of you can blame the billionaire masters who run this shit, did the fucking fans decide to turn Darby vs Jeff Hardy into a hardcore match, when it could’ve been fine as a normal match and it did have stakes to it in that it was for the Owen Hart cup? I didn’t realize the bloodthirsty fans were the ones who had the power to book that match, was it the bloodthirsty fans who didn’t know how to set  fucking table properly for a spot that fucked up Ana Jay’s neck? No, it was the people running it. Yeah you can get mad at shit head fans who are bloodthirsty much like how society was when shows like Jerry Springer were around, but the system encourages that kind of shit. 

I know people think I am trying to come off as a savior or some shit. I am not a fucking savior but it doesn’t mean I have to go about life doing the cookie cutter shit that everyone ends up doing once they get their gigs and access. It feels like society with our favorite entertainment was fueled by that but now are expanding on that shit, which is why this Jerry Springer shit made really think, and now I can’t stop because I am writing fucking blogs that probably don’t make any sense. The ironic thing is people think I will be running my mouth and I think I will never suffer any consequences for things I put out there, even with the disclaimers, but this is how one dimensional everyone’s view is to think punishment should only come in physical form, but the reason I have been able to reflect and go off on the things I have gone off on, is because I was punished and made to look like a complete failure. I am not declining that I am not to blame on some level, I will take some of the accountability but the system by nature destroys people, and they never have to take any accountability, they embrace people who will give up their leverage and put it all on them because the system is not expected to take any responsibility despite encouraging and organizing shoddy behavior. I have been punished, you know how sick in the head some of these powerful people have to be to hate me so much for not selling my soul at the right time, because I had a fucking conscience, where now they get int people in my life’s ear and make me rely upon them so I am treated as a child living his parents basement, not allowed to find work in the entertainment industry at all, people you know making backdoor deals, me being brought out with no social leverage where I had to take past friends shit of having a better life, being in better positions of vacations, weddings, hanging out with celebs etc all to be rubbed in my face and putting me through purity tests and then these people can pretend they never did anything mean because they helped me out or invited me to limited gatherings. You don’t think that was an incentive given from higher up in the world. Different people with platforms who are connected would also use me for their shows and treat me like a guineapig, I know because Bully Ray basically runs that show now, but me being a high profiled caller on Stern Show helped Busted Open get on the fucking map, and even with good radio, they started doing their Howard Stern shit, and the funny thing is Bully Ray would shit on me at the behest of Stern, and Stern wouldn’t even admit he knows the guy and he would generalize your profession, and no one in that world would ever say shit to him about it. I have had other trolls and other alt media platforms try to recreate Howard Stern level shit and they thought I would embrace it because someone who was famous can’t handle not being relevant, and yes I have not been able to handle it well since fame became a fucking drug, but now I am at the point where I don’t give a shit if I make it ever. I could die a pathetic person, but you mother fuckers will never heal properly being in that fucking world. You know how horrible this entire world would have to be if my solution and desire is to opt for assisted suicide, because if the world has a bright future instead of a really fucked up fundamentalist dystopian nightmare, maybe I wouldn’t want to be dead. That is how horrible the world is getting. But don’t say  I don’t suffer consequences, I have taken mental abuse after mental abuse for so fucking long and guess what, at the end of it all, these trauma and this suppression and my ultimate demise doesn’t count on the purity test for me to be seen as someone who should get vindication. Maybe if I decided to go more right wing, some of the people could boost up my trauma and get me vindication but then I would have to support regressive shit but I am so desperate to get some empathy for my trauma, one would think I would do that, which is why people who have been fucked with from a powerful person, they had to cosign with some of the right wing and some of the post left people, because if that person still didn’t like what the right wing was doing and didn’t want to blindly defend Putin, none of those would give a shit. So people who don’t think I suffer any consequences, you can eat shit because sooner or later when the system screws you over and they will, I hope no one believes you the same way no one believes me and let’s see if that is not really suffering like it isn’t suffering when it comes to what I have been through. People in my position normally are so tortured mentally they don’t know how to articulate it properly. They are afraid of how it might sound, but when you are immune to people thinking you are crazy, you feel a bit more comfortable. I didn’t decide to be a discredited conspiracy theorist, you bestowed that upon me so I would not be taken seriously but you don’t like how I can weaponize it back? So punishing me in this regard where I am a red flag person that can’t be interacted with to keep me isolated locally but also now not having a “fan base” so I am alone and miserable with my own thoughts, is not considered punishment enough for people, because the “smart” shills of the system will still dumb down the game and not talk about how advanced it all is. So all my issues have to be seen as an only me issue that no one helped orchestrate, I have taken blame for shit I haven’t done, if you followed my fucking journey over the last 15 years you know what mind space I have been in for periods in my life and you have seen me come out smarter each time from it. Trust me there is someone out there dedicated to monitoring your every movie and having it on record so they can use it against you later, which is why some of these shills have become agents that are being forced into being a hypocritical mess. 

At the risk of sounding even more stupid. I want to give my thought process so you can get the perception of the dumbed down guy so maybe some of you in smart positions can educate mentally ill conspiracy theorists like me, since you all want to be thought leaders and pretend you are smarter than everyone. Is this Green New Deal shit good or bad? Now if you know all the answers already, you are gonna shake your head and maybe copy and paste this to someone to make fun of in a text message or something. When it comes to the environment, I recognize it is one of the most important issues on the planet but it is one of the most boring topics on the fucking planet. Back when I was a cookie cutter conspiracy theorists, people would limit narratives and conspiracy framing, like “If MSM says Climate Change is real and dangerous, then we have to say that it doesn’t exist or it is not happening” like there isn’t more nuanced thought that go to expand upon it. Like I explained before because I don’t understand science and only believe what the scientists say and I will just repeat their talking points, if someone comes to me with other alternate facts, I am going to start leaning over there because that person might have credibility to me now since he questioned 9/11 which apparently you are not allowed to do, but for some reason you can still piece together that Saudi Arabia had something to do with it, but wouldn’t US still having relations with them and presidents cozying up them wouldn’t that still be just as much a justification to think it is an inside job, but okay whatever but I am noticing now that we all agreed that the green new deal would be a good solution, I don’t know how since I am dumb as shit but I am listening to people on the left tell me how good it is, so now that I know TYT is slowly moving more to the right and you have Ana Kasparian pushing back against it because of some examples of how regular people can’t afford those kinds of vehicles or stoves etc, now as a dumbed down person who consumed their media, I would be like “Okay I guess I have to kind of be suspect of the green new deal now beause a fair ‘leftist’ in Ana Kasparian is pushing back at it” now if I knew about this shit, maybe I could get my own answers but am I to believe she is lying and buying into sensationalized right wing talking points or was elements of the green new deal suspect, and it was designed to get pushback, but it was also a way for people like TYT to contine to find a way to pivot more to the right wing. See I am asking as a dumbed down person, this is how I process the information and guess what, there are lot of other dumbed down people who probably feel like I feel, but they are hanging out with different political minds who are repeating talking points, and those points could be true, but they wouldn’t exactly know themselves. See this is why we live in an era where people know the world is imploding and they all want to partake in the conversation and they think because one show is credible, that everything they say has to be credible so you will agree with them despite taking in propaganda. This is how my whole life has been and the reason I bought into various amounts of propaganda. This is why I don’t want to be here because I know I will be susceptible to that shit because propaganda will keep sophisticating itself and come in all shapes and forms in the future. Like I am not saying you shouldn’t call out democrats for the shit that is happening but when I feel people in powerful positions know where the world is going and they gimmick how they are “fair” then I know that they could be easing their way to come into the right wing because ultimately the right wing trajectory that exists in the system will get their official face for what represents them, which is someone like a DeSantis or Trump. But even that political shit is become its own Jerry Springer show, because if the world is supposed to implode and that is the intention of it, all of the shit being said on the surface is filler until we just get there so someone is gonna say some stupid shit that will get dunked on while the people dunking on establishment people are now collaborating with Christian fundamentalists because on the surface they said some anti war shit. The system by design is making it obvious of what they are doing, but people online and alternate media are acting like they are the only ones pointing out corruption and hypocrisy and that act used to have legit organic shit behind it maybe 10-15 years ago, but now it has become another personality trait that someone says so you don’t question their credibility. I can’t question Aaron Mate because Jimmy Dore wears a stupid hat and talks down to me about how he is an award winning journalist. Well guess what Owen Hart stole a slammy when he was supposed to present for best bowtie. Like 10-15 years ago, if you told me the US wants people too support Ukraine and get behind this war, but since then people have exposed how these wars in Iraq etc were illegal wars, and this was designed to be put out there as a narrative, because while we think they are running the same playbook and they are making it more obvious etc, but what if the playbook advanced, because people think that Putin has invaded US democracy and that is the only way that he can be evil in Us Imperialist eyes, but what if my conspiracy theory is that a bunch of neocons and neolibs, who present a pro wrestling country vs country aesthetic, are actually the ones influencing Putin, but the internet thinks they are awoken to this because we recognize the aesthetic of the Iraq war shit, personally I think the US is funding both sides, and the democrats don’t care about the inconsistencies when you bring up other people who are suffering from oppressive regimes, it is kind of like you want to us to not support this shit and end up supporting who the neocons support which is far right wing people in different countries. I am not saying it is true, but I am also allowed to critically think against some of the people in alt media who have shown they dumbed shit down and echo the sentiments of Tucker Carlson being the only anti war guy. Again I am a dumbed down guy who isn’t take seriously but how dare I question alt media, I must be a fucking MSM shill, even though I thnk their shit has been fucking whack for a long fucking time, but that whole value of the MSM now only relies on it for storylines like RJK getting censored for vaccine opinions, because other funded media and accounts on all social media platforms are not gonna talk about it at all, I won’t hear about this on Bill Maher’s show whatsoever right. People have really made it seem like they are all calling out shit when it is just faction warfare taking place.

Even with the AI conversation, if I am of the belief technology has always been advanced and science has been way more advanced, then what makes these accidents with technology more scary is that we have manifested entertainment so much that we are making the narrative of all the crazy shit that is about to happen because of AI when it is most likely that people controlled this to happen, AI could be stopped but they are promoting it now as a big scary thing when the last decade a bunch of the shit you saw or heard has probably been something to do with AI. I used to think it is impossible for artists to go out and do as much shit as they are doing and having the time for all these records, so what is stopping them from thinking the music of the last 10 years was AI as well? Would that be so farfetched? By the way until someone gets Drake to sing Eminem’s Kim, I won’t be sold on it, you gotta do a little better than fucking up Biggie’s original flow so he can flow like Nas on NY State of Mind. I am starting to think Eminem doing that 2pac album was him testing the grounds with AI and completely fucking it up because he was not as experienced. I even think Eminem’s revival is now an AI album, I bet that is where the discourse will go next, that we will find out some of the best albums was all AI done, so now it takes away from their legacy. Imagine if you found out to Pimp a Butterfly was all done by AI, the Drake fans are gonna have a field day and then the Kendrick fans will do a “THIS YOU?” to Drake because we will find out his entire career he has been doing AI music. Am I blowing your mind right now? I know this blog is all over the fucking place, but I did want to get some other thoughts, but I don’t know how to segue into a new topic after I just potentially destroyed potential fandoms spirits with the possibility of their favorites having AI being done for them. Now I am starting to think that Rap God shit by Eminem was also AI. But everything has become a scandal for online shit because we need the kayfabed shit of discovering shit that when it is being permitted to be known so it changes the narrative of shit. Like the information of DeSantis’ surgeon general gimmicking stats so to add to the anti vaccine narrative could’ve been put out there, the fact that isn’t as much being talked about than how the right wing would with Hunter Biden’s laptop, that is why I was never against regular people who were couldn’t get vaccinated and had their reasons etc, I was not gonna be an elitist but there are people who are online and television who are paid to be anti vaccine but we think the money and funding goes to the pro vaccine shit, the right wing has shit handed to them because all you have to do is show people in the system were being shady about something so that person who was exposing the truth gets to be trotted out on alt media about being silenced despite everyone talking about them. Like exposing how Fox News etc has dossiers on people, Howard Stern kind of exposed what high profile celebs do where they get people to build dossiers on people who would report on them to have their lives ruined, but now because it is Tucker Carlson, now it is a bigger deal, I know closet right wingers parading around as the opposite will get mad at me but it is like they are taking the CM Punk method with Tucker Carlson, at least in their booking. The only victim that matters from getting fucked over. I have seen this act with Howard Stern before, and now everyone eats off of that shit. The people who cheerlead Tucker act like he was Austin in 98 going against McMahon. Our entire lives now have turned into this circuit where there is more effort into introducing these characters knowing they are gonna exist in the discourse, and the only thing people on the left have socially is to laugh at the self owning when they are proven to bring a fucking hypocrite. Nothing is gonna happen to that SF fire commissioner who got attacked by a homeless dude but then we got twists and turns of the reveal he was spraying homeless people and was caught on camera, it is like a new way to expose someone but still doing it in a Jerry Springer like way, they are introducing you to these villains, there was a cop exposed of sexually abusing 200 children, I never see any of the “I AM CONCERNED FOR MY KIDS BECAUSE OF DRAG SHOWS”  talk about that, because they only exist to be regressive and they can’t even cop to the fact they sold their soul, they have to act like they are keeping it real by falling for sensationalist shit, but to tie this back into the Jerry Springer shit, we literally created that in modern times while people act like they are condemning it. Kyle Rittenhouse is gonna be a fucking star and we think this is the only example of this happening to. We will boo him and hiss at him, but he is protected by the right wing so while we have pretended we have made the actual fiction we consume seem more progressive, it is like all the script writers and comedy writers are now booking this discourse, the real life WWE, Jerry Springer Show, the new Howard Stern show but with real life consequences of people losing their lives and all for the exploitation because we can’t admit as a society we have a entertainment problem. Sorry I know a lot of you want to recreate the Friends intro with your faction, so this might be hard for you to really take all of this in. Most people probably checked out, but sometimes I think when I used to write, I didn’t know what my identity was really because I was trying to be too much from what I was influenced by but the last few years I have found my identity and I can articulate a bit better than I could before, and I see the world the way I see it, not everyone has to agree with me but for some reason when they don’t agree with me, they get scared that other people might read this and agree. People have looked down upon me for so fucking long that even people from my past think they can undermine me even if they pretend to respect me, a lot of people have gotten worse over time and for some reason it is a big nope from people if I start analyzing everything and everyone in the only way I know how. My words leave scars apparently because if you hate me, you will hate me for not being able to write, or me being a conspiracy theorist, me being someone who is pointing out flaws in society, hate that I am trying to put my thought process out there etc, take your fucking pick, and when you hate me, you will then enact more shit to fuck with me in the future and the best part is you think no one will know, but since I know what a lot of you with power are capable of, you will still hate me because your mind is so poisoned you will opt revenge for making you think and reflect so you will use resources to make me feel more miserable or used advanced ways to fuck with me and don’t worry no one will believe me, so you guys can keep doing it because that is what people who are sociopathic in the system will do. But at least if I have to take that shit, I know my words at least got to you even if you want to admit it or not, you have to act high and mighty for your faction, they can’t see their leaders look weak, even though we are all weak to some degree, but I don’t have a faction to cater to, so I am allowed to be vulnerable and open about my thought process because I know what vulture like people act like when they sense weakness, it actually exposes you a lot more. And if this is all in my head and I am irrelevant, then maybe the forest that this blog resides in will be only meant for the trees and leaves to see and it is for no one else’s eyes. The very least, some powerful people might be impressed with this and they might talk about it, so other cogs in the system will be jealous of it, so they will start amplifying some creative output that will get direct results of getting boosted up. Did I give that away too? Another reason to hate me.

[rockislandadultreads]

Queer Holiday Book Recs

Faux Ho Ho by 'Nathan Burgoine

Silas Waite doesn’t want his big-C Conservative Alberta family to know he’s barely making rent. They’d see it as yet another sign that he’s not living up to the Waite family potential and muscle in on his life. When Silas unexpectedly needs a new roommate, he ends up with the gregarious (and gorgeous) personal trainer Constantino “Dino” Papadimitriou. Silas’s parents try to brow-beat him into visiting for Thanksgiving, where they’ll put him on display as an example of how they’re so “tolerant,” for Silas’s brother’s political campaign, but Dino pretends to be his boyfriend to get him out of it, citing a prior commitment. The ruse works—until they receive an invitation to Silas’s sister’s last-minute wedding. Silas loves his sister, Dino wouldn’t mind a chalet Christmas, and together, they could turn a family obligation into something fun. But after nine months of being roommates, then friends, and now “boyfriends,” Silas finds being with Dino way too easy, and being the son that his parents barely tolerate too hard. Something has to give, but luckily, it’s the season for giving—and maybe what Silas has to give is worth the biggest risk of all.

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass. Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account, Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy’s brother—and Elle's new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward. When Darcy begs Elle to play along, she agrees to pretend they’re dating to save face. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family over the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a fake relationship. But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?

In the Winter Woods by Isabelle Adler

Declan Kensington isn’t really in the mood for Christmas. His latest mystery book sales are tanking, his finances are in a dismal state, and his spirits are anything but festive. Perhaps spending the holidays alone at his family lakeside cabin in the small village of Maplewood, Vermont, will provide him much-needed peace and quiet. Then he might finally get to work on a new book and (hopefully) jumpstart his stalling writing career. When he starts receiving anonymous letters threatening him to leave, Declan realizes his solitary writer’s retreat isn’t at all what he bargained for. And if the threats aren’t enough, a killer strikes, casting Declan in the role of the most likely suspect. Now it’s up to him and the handsome local Public Safety Commissioner Curtis Monroe to find out the truth before Declan spends Christmas (and the rest of his life) in jail. But as dead bodies pile up and dark secrets are revealed beneath Maplewood’s picture-perfect facade, Declan’s heart may yet be in more danger than his life…

The Inside Edge by Ashlyn Kane

What does a work-life balance look like to recently retired professional athletes? Ex-hockey player Nate Overton is trying to find out, but dipping his toes in the gay dating scene post-divorce is a daunting prospect even without the news that his show is on thin ice. Before he can tackle either issue, he skates headfirst into another problem—his new cohost. Former figure skater Aubrey Chase is the embodiment of a spoiled rich playboy. He’s also flamboyant, sharp, and hot as sin. Aubrey knows how important it is to get off on the right foot. He’s just not very good at it outside the rink. Having spent his life desperate for attention, he’ll do anything to get it—even the wrong kind. For Nate and Aubrey, opposites don’t so much attract as collide at center ice. But while Nate’s everything Aubrey has scrupulously avoided—until now—Aubrey falls suddenly head over heels, and Nate’s only looking for a rebound fling. Can Aubrey convince Nate to risk his heart again, or will their unexpected connection be checked at the first sign of trouble?

[blursed-ninjago-ideas]

It ‘‘twas I who came up with the Garmadon who ran the Eric Andre equivalent show in ninjago au. I say this fully unmasked now because I have no shame. (Also I may have binged some of Andre’s material earlier today) But uh anyways I got some more ideas for this

Garmadon has run out of fucks and he needs a hobby. Also he doesn’t want to just follow in the family business of being some sagely master.

So Garmadon decides to say fuck and it be a late night show host with heavy focus on absurd humor.

The public broadcast station has no standards and hey it’ll raise awareness and potential funding. They may also be intimidated by Garmadon’s reputation.

Listen Garmadon does have some funny one liner’s and dad jokes in the earlier seasons of ninjago.

Lloyd supports Garmadon’s insane show and helps write some of it too.

Misako was hesitant but eh if Garmadon wants to be a himbo and it helps him recover. Then why not and it’s funny.

Garmadon also yoinked Dareth as a cohost because he feels bad about burning the dojo and hey Dareth’s funny enough.

There’s this one prank Eric pulls on the subway where he didn’t get the job at Froot loops.

Said prank https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UlXcoVHnog

Ok but just replace Froot Loops with master Chen’s noodles.

Garmadon is petty and Chen’s noodle house becomes a running gag on the show

Imagine you’re just an average citizen who just got off from your shitty retail job and you’re on the subway. Suddenly this immortal demigod just walks in a fucking black morph suit covered in like fucking instant noodles glued to it and a cone of shame.

Said demigod dramatically fucking announces that he didn’t get the job at a fast food chain. And decides to lay himself out as a human sacrifice to be consumed with warm noodles included.

There’s also a bit where Eric shows up to a McDonald’s as Ronald McDonald and pretends to fire people.

So just Garmadon showing up as Chen and doing the sketch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ih7TTjlywbQ

Skylor loves the Chen’s noodle house jokes just because it pisses off her dad and it’s good press.

Skylor inevitably gets interviewed by Garmadon too.

Because Garmadon dying in this au would be sad.

Sorry this took awhile, I needed time to look up the clips you linked.

Skylor gets handed a (cooked) noodle crown during the interview. (since she is....the noodle princess) which she doesn't even hesitate to put on.

Garmadon keeps saying that he's sponsored by Chen's Noodle House. He's gotten sued over it twice, but he just keeps paying the suit and doing it more.

Cliff Gordon is interviewed. Garmadon spends the entire time talking over him. It starts as plausible interruptions or not realizing that he was talking, but gets more and more aggressive as it goes on. Cliff didn't actually managed to get out one single complete sentence.

Lloyd gets interviewed, and they just trash the set for the whole time. Making some small talk, but otherwise not talking.

Each of the ninja have done an interview actually. (Theirs were scripted, unlike the other guest stars.)

Zane's was just silence for the rest for the episode after he was introduced. Him and Garmadon nod a few times, and Zane shakes his head once. Neither move from their seats.

Cole and Garmadon take turns eating the crazier and crazier things while conducting an otherwise normal interview. Starting with Cole bringing a sandwich and Garmadon eating his mug. Ending with Garmadon eating Dareth.

Kai's is 95% a normal interview, but it ramps up very quickly at the end to them talking themselves into "joint suicide" with a stupid amount of fake blood.

Nya lights the set on fire after being ask to demonstrate her elemental water powers.

There are increasingly large and intrusive animals being released through out Jay's. Starting with a bee, ending with a dragon.

Pixal didn't show. She didn't warn Garmadon that she wasn't going to show. It was a real live reaction to him realizing she stood him up. (And him admitting she really understood the chaotic nature of the show.)

The ninja had to be called in to deal with the "live bear".

-Ivy

[silver9mm]

For the WIP-game: 6, 14 and 15 please? <3<3<3

my indulgent fren <3333333

6. write 3 sentences of any wip you’d like, post it in the answer. i see what this is, forcing me to open my wip documents and read through them and be like some bish should finish this story and then i'm like oh that bish is me I SEE HOW IT IS

*fifteen minutes later*

well this is witchcraft bc i actually wrote words o.o and see! see! don't give up on me :)

Andy nodded, agreed, showed his palms, finished his drink and smoke and was only a little spinny when he got up to refresh them this time, allowed Jeremy to drag him into disparaging other potential cohosts when Jeremy wouldn’t just come out and say that he had to have May on the show. There were no direct comparisons, the man’s name wasn’t even said again, but no one else they thought of had it---and Andy knew what it was.

He had it too, and it was waving arms around and hollering into the darkness and chain-smoking, eyes gone wild and violet with the sunset, the cherry of his cigarette tracing hearts and stars and interdictory circles in the air.

Just for you <3 <3 <3

14. what’s your favorite thing about writing?

Reading it when it's all done :) No but actually imagining the scene right before writing it. I love being like, okay, what does this scene smell like, feel like, what time is it, what's going on outside, what nominal thing can i make have great importance but only in passing,,,, idk i just love creating each scene then figuring out all the right words to make it real. It comes out mostly things *I* would notice while in the scene myself, so it's fun seeing what's important and impactful to me...........if that makes any sense :P

15. what’s your least favorite thing about writing?

The weird thing that happens sometimes where I'm like, cool gonna write and then i become so insanely TIRED i can't focus, literally can't keep my eyes open. It's a strange phenomenon that no else has ever mentioned but it happens to me a lot and it's like, no amount of coffee or whatever helps; if i get into the "let's write" mode, like 13% of the time my brain goes, you spellled narcolepsy wrong ? Other than that, nothing. I love writing, i love typing, i love looking up info, i love editing, chapter planning, whatever, it's all an amazing process. I guess I wish I could do it faster so that i didn't feel so guilty about all the other shit i "should" be doing in the hours and hours it takes me to write ?

wip ask game

[retrocontinuity]

rev, rev, fight the power: thoughts on the first half of chainsaw man

Spoilers through the end of the Bomb Girl Arc.

Devil Hunting in the Age of Fascism

As one of the cohosts of a podcast on Gundam Wing in 2020/2021, I've been thinking a lot about how authoritarian regimes and the concept of societal control is treated in anime. Which is to say: usually in a very limited sense, and based on the actions of a few bad actors, as demonstrated with its effects on a few unfortunate protagonists. It's not that creators don't care about the issue, but rather a sign that the genre (and yes, I do consider manga/anime to be a genre more than just a medium, but that's for another time) and its conventions are not particularly well-suited to showing you those effects.

So, Chainsaw Man. On an individual character level, Fujimoto has some stuff to say about the choice between death and life, and I do want to talk about that and what it says about the characters and what life means in CSM. But it's hard to tell whether or not he meant to create a world with some really fucked up institutions too. 

For instance, the civilian, non-public sector Devil Hunters. These appear to be explicitly authorized by the Japanese government, to the point where it is a crime for the Public Safety division's hunters to kill a devil that a civilian is in the process of capturing. They don't have guns (this is Japan!) and I imagine they are only allowed to kill Devils, but just, like, think about this. What if you kill someone else in the process of trying to kill a Devil? What if you suspect someone is a Fiend but actually they're just acting weird? What if you kill someone, then claim later it's because you thought they were a Devil?

This is likely the American in me talking, but I can’t help thinking about how badly this would be abused and how horrible an idea that would be. And I can’t help but think about how the Devils allow the world of CSM to separate fears from human nature. By which I mean, in the world of CSM, evil is otherized in a very specific way; they’re represented by very individual, very distinct, and very monstrous representations. Here is the fear of scissors, the fear of sharks, the fear of the future, and so on. But in the real world, we know it isn’t just fear itself that is the problem; it’s people, well-meaning or otherwise, animated by those fears that create the most evil, or people harnessing those fears to gain power. This may be unfair—I don’t know what Fujimoto has planned for Makima, whose mythos and power seems very much wrapped up in the idea of using Devils to her own advantage. But there’s an assumption here that all actions taken towards eradication of the Devils, or maybe just one Gun Devil, is a de facto good. And in 2021, that’s a very unnerving position to take.

Death in Chainsaw Man is a sacrifice. In these early arcs of the series, death is a "contract," an expending of activation energy to achieve something else. So Pochita gives Denji life (which is really a contract repaid, for when Denji gave him life), so the Devil Hunters "trade" something in a contract with a Devil for power (like Aki giving away literal years of his life to his curse sword), so Denji dying to the Eternity Devil would have freed the rest of the team. But there are plenty of deaths in the series where nothing is traded, nothing is given. These tend to be nameless victims or, in one harrowing scene, convicted felons who die at the hands of Makima as she chases down Katana Devil. 

What did they gain? What was the contract formed by the deaths of these 雑魚?

Makima says at some point when she's attacking the gangs that are affiliated with the Katana Devil that "the truly necessary evils are always kept collared and controlled by the state." Which I think is at its face about the fiends and Devils kept “collared” by the Public Safety Bureau. But maybe it’s also about the idea of sacrifice, about giving yourself over to the state, in order to control a world thrown into chaos. The contracts formed by the deaths of those ordinary citizens is meant to bring about an eradication of fear. It gives birth to the Public Safety Devil Hunters, to Devil Hunters in general, to the use of whatever means necessary to achieve an end. But whatever those consequences are, we only see them in the fates of Denji, Chainsaw Man, and the impossible characters around him. 

A state under threat, a state that feels like it must collar evil in order to survive, will have ruinous consequences. I just hope we get to see what those are. 

Just A Teenage Dirtbag, (Bomb) Baby

I read some reviews about Denji being the anti-shounen shounen manga hero which I can presume were written by people whose only frame of reference is Bleach, Naruto, or One Piece. Sure, the Big Three were, in their most simplistic forms, feel-good series, and CSM's first half is basically a feel-bad series, but that hardly makes it unusual. It's really not dissimilar from other manga like Homunculus, Freesia, and Oyasumi Punpun. Of course, only old fogies like me, who still remember getting scanlations of these series off of IRC, and query, of course, whether or not those series are shounen at all, or more like seinen. If it were up to me to name the genre, and of course it is not, I would call it “simply another line of stories about fucked up things happen to fucked up people.”

Many fucked up things have happened to Denji. I’d call it traumatic, but I don’t think “trauma” covers what this poor man has been through. The effect, though, has been to make Denji less than human, even in his human form.

Denji and Power's nonchalance towards the fate of their human coworkers who die to Katana Devil and Sawatari is framed by the manga through Denji as a potential sign of callousness. Kishibe notes it as a sign that they are "insane," in other words, "not like other humans," and thus capable of bringing down something like the Gun Devil, which would otherwise drive "normal humans" insane. 

But like, huh? Denji and Power's reactions are, on the contrary, extremely human, because there’s no reason for them to extend feeling towards other humans. Simply put, they’ve never been human to the humans around them. They seem to be bonded most closely to each other, and in fact almost all the Fiends are, because the wider Public Safety employees treat them so poorly. Remember how the Infinity Devil Arc starts? Basically, they're told to be the advance guard, and threatened to be killed if they ever act out. Denji is kept on a short leash, and is so proud (in front of Reze) that he's allowed to go places on his own now.

Which, I'm not saying that that's wrong. Denji is incredibly dumb, holds monstrous power that could easily be tricked into using for horrible purposes, and appears to be the target of a number of Gun Devil's allies. Power is... well. I wouldn't let her out of sight either. But what Makima does that makes Denji feel so loyal, so utterly tied to her, is simply treating him as a human. She convinces him he has a heart, just like any other human. She tells him about all the love experiences he'll have in the future, because he's just a human teenager. And just like Makima, Reze is able to bond with Denji by treating him like an ordinary 16-year-old horny boy. Is it because as a Devil she knows what he wants the most? What he is craving, and never had? It doesn't matter that Denji had been just an ordinary human before fusing with Pochita or before he began his life as a Devil Hunter; as an orphan growing up on the street, unwanted and unloved, he was no more human than a Devil.  

The ending of the Bomb Girl Arc—with Denji asking Reze to run away with him, only to be stood up—reminded me so very much of Aku no Hana. There's the classroom scenes between Reze and Denji, of course, but mostly I think about how Denji—betrayed, injured, manipulated Denji—still asks Reze to run away with him. I'd written about Aku no Hana before, how one of the saddest things about Nakamura is that she cannot imagine a world beyond her current circumstance (and, in fact, the manga ends up dooming her to stagnation). Denji and Reze are Nakamura and Kasuga's perverse mirror. It is because Denji doesn't have the capacity to imagine a larger world beyond his immediate now, three meals a day and a job and this woman who taught him how to swim, that he asks her to do this impossible thing, to run away with him knowing that to do would mean both of them betraying their masters. It is because Reze knows that it is impossible that she does not meet Denji at the cafe. Reze is more human than Denji, because she is capable of dreams, and because she is capable of dreaming, she knows she cannot afford their luxury. She knows too much about the world and its cruelty. And, so, she walks straight into its open maw, and straight into her death.

I don't think we can take Reze at her word that she wanted to be a town mouse, or rather we should say instead that Reze proves that the division between the town mouse and the country mouse is immaterial. The issue is that both, in the end, are only mice, dreaming of a safety they can never achieve. Safety, in the world of CSM, is neither town mouse nor country mouse. It is to not be mice at all. It is to be the dog that digs them out from the cold winter dirt. 

It is, in fact, to be Makima, the person who orders the dogs to kill the mice.

Denji, aim for the top! Transcend the town mouse/country mouse divide! Or else you will constantly be hunted and used!

(Side note: CSM goes at a break-neck pace, and I think the speed through which Fujimoto rushes through these early storylines has made it very difficult for me to actually connect with the characters. Reze and Denji’s relationship is one of the victims to this pacing. Do I believe that Denji could fall for a girl and be willing to risk it all for her after about 3 chapters worth of interaction? Sure, he’s that kind of guy. But does it work for me? Not particularly. We’ve hardly had time to linger with Reze before she swears she’ll protect Denji forever, as long as he’ll run away with her. Though the reader at that point knows there’s something off about Reze, it’s still just not believable. Reze’s actions seem like someone trying to bulldoze her way into Denji’s affections, and though she herself is a bittersweet character, I just really feel like CSM could have spent less time with Bomb Devil vs Chainsaw Man and more time with Reze and Denji.)

No Ethical Women Under Capitalism

The Eternity Devil arc, for all its mini-boss game feel (it wouldn’t be out of place as one of the floors in Tower of God), struck a nerve with me, if only because it felt, however unintentionally, to be a story about working under modern capitalism. A floor you can never leave, that loops endless, where the only way to escape is to destroy it, literally, from the inside, by making it so painful, an eternal feedback loop of destroying ourselves and destroying it, before it opens its heart to us. The Capitalism Devil threatens us, tries to tear us apart. Asks us to sacrifice the strongest, the weakest, anybody among us, as if by climbing over the bodies of our friends and coworkers, we can come out ahead. It makes us suspicious of each other, ready to tear into any weakness for an advantage. 

No wonder this is the chapter where Kobeni lays bare her reasons for joining the Public Safety bureau. She needed to work, to make money. Her options were to be a sex worker or a Devil Hunter. Either way, she was selling her body to the system. Kobeni is a victim of capitalism, which forces her to do what she hates, for goal that are not hers, and then gaslights us into thinking that she’s wrong for being crazy, she’s wrong for losing her shit, for not being able to handle it.

But... that's an asspull for me, even if it's my ass and I'm the one pulling. I'm truly not sure how to feel about Kobeni. Like, what is her deal?! I’m not sure what to make of her appearance in Chapter 20 in her sister’s hand-me-down. Are we supposed to pity her? See ourselves in her? Even in what I think was intended to be a mic-drop-ish line (at least for her), telling Aki that she didn’t quit because she was waiting on her bonus, landed flat for me, too deadpan to be pathetic and not sharp enough to be actually funny. Part of it may be because she is a character very much shaped by her circumstances as opposed to her personality or any interaction/action she does onscreen, but we don’t actually see her family situation in these chapters. We’re left with a painfully shy and cowardly woman who can’t seem to form any human connections with any of the other characters, who in multiple scenes is shown caving to the slightest pressure or threat.

Do the rest of the women fare any better? I’m not sure. Kobeni is unique in that she does not use her gender/sex appeal to manipulate the men around her and/or Denji (even Power lets Denji cop a feel to get her cat back!). Himeno, Makima, and Reze all hide their intentions for Denji behind the veil of his attraction to them (weak or strong) and are either unable or unwilling to be forthright in their desires and ambitions (Himeno to care for Aki; Reze, to accomplish whatever mission Gun Devil had her set out to do; and Makima, for fuck do I know at this point, but she’s up to something!!). Meanwhile, the men are straightforward to a fault. Did Fujimoto intend this? Is this just a subconscious reveal of his own conceptions of gender and Bitches Be Weird? 

I’m not a person who needs to have a strong female narrative in a story, but when you start a story with a protagonist whose life ambition for many chapters was just to feel a boob, you better be careful, you know? CSM doesn’t lack for women; Makima and Power are both formidable characters in their own rights, self-assured and unbeholden to anyone but themselves. But so far almost every arc has featured a woman offering herself to Denji sexually in order to get him to do what they want. It’s getting real old real fast. 

[enchanted-system]

New intro!

Basically all of this is in our about, but since we’ll update that as we figure more things out, here’s a condensed version for posterity:

Host subsystem, very blurry, share memories:

Sapphire (ey/em): host, bigenderfluid, gryffinclaw, anxiety, loves system and organization, all the life goals.

barker (he/him): former cohost, closest to Sapphire and often exerts passive influence or cofronts. Pure gryffindor. Very excited and chaotic, some kind of big tricolor doggo. Distractor from distressing things.

Kai/kai (they/them, sometimes ey/em as Kai, sometimes he/him as kai): barker and Sapphire - capitalization indicates whose influence is stronger. Blurry host.

Protector (he/him): protector, former cohost, sometimes exerts passive influence or cofronts with Sapphire/Kai. Slytherdor. Strong PTSD, probably AVPD.

Jet (ne/nem or they/them): blur of Protector and Sapphire. Protector role. Identifies strongly with Bahamut - justice, dragons, platinum.

Jack (he/him): combination of Protector and barker. Rare because Sapphire is frontstuck. Somewhat more relaxed/chaotic version of Protector.

dragon (they/them): collective name, also name of any combination of Sapphire, barker, and Protector. When dragon is in full force (all three fully present and cofronting), most powerful of the system, usually comes out when someone else is threatened in a less serious way.

Cat (she/her): sexual alter, naiad. Never hosted, somewhat younger than dragon because of years inactive since realizing plurality. Hypersexual ace lesbian, kinky, very sweet. Did not have anxiety, dove into the deep end of socializing, now has anxiety. Shares memories with dragon, but much more separate.

Fen (fae/faer or she/her): combination of Cat and Sapphire. Femme, often Sapphire's and Cat's sexualities blending. Fey.

Ella (she/her): indeterminate origins, possible tulpa. Unknown gender. Mostly backtalks Kai as kai talks through their life, really likes star trek. Does not front, has been mostly absent for years.

Possible little?: ~6 years old

There’s also some question of whether Sapphire is a median subsystem. We keep calling things median subsystems for them to turn out to be fairly separate people who share memories, but Maybe This is Really It. There’s a philosophical question of at what point do we consider people to be the same person: are you the same person you were five minutes ago? Five years ago? At work vs at home? In different kinshifts? The last one is what’s relevant to Sapphire. The most distinct by far is eir fey self, and then there’s eir male self, eir Lienid self, and eir femme self. I think that’s all of them that we’ve thought of? We haven’t thought about it a lot.

We don’t have much (or really any) control over fronting, which is an issue we’d like to address but tbh aren’t prioritizing. We do know of certain situations/states of mind that make others more likely to front, though if we attempt a switch using those triggers, it doesn’t work super well. It’s also very hard to differentiate between Sapphire fronting alone, Kai fronting, passive influence from barker and/or Protector, and Protector cofronting, especially since that changes from moment to moment, and there are significant overlaps in personality, preferences, and tone for one thing at a time. We can tell the difference between us for longer lengths of time, and it’s often easier to recognize who was fronting when reading past messages. For the people who know us as plural, we’ll sign our names when people are being particularly distinct, especially when the distinction matters, but for the most part we just go by dragon. Cat rarely fronts, and pretty much only with Sapphire or alone.

We aren’t currently aware of any headspace, though Sapphire has at this point visited somewhere multiple times that may be a dormant headspace or similar. Once was visiting a cave in a catatonic episode, once was accidentally visiting a hiking trail by a waterfall that led up to a beautiful yellow stone and glass building, and once was deliberately visiting the latter place, but incompletely.

Sapphire is currently wrestling with the idea of intimate relationships, and the possibility of sexual trauma. Ey feels drawn towards processing those issues and discovering what happened in our childhood, but is also afraid of potential ensuing mental health crises. Currently, we’re focusing on the possibility that ey was traumatized by rape culture and what incidents we do know of, in combination with eir existing social anxiety and trauma. We don’t think we necessarily repressed any memories from childhood, but we do deliberately avoid thinking about that time period, and trying to line up who was hosting when and/or bringing out the little we believe exists would inherently involve facing the traumatic events that happened in those periods. We still identify as quoigenic, with Sapphire and barker identifying as endogenic twins, though given that Cat identifies more with the body as well as our deadname, we’re wondering if she came before Sapphire and barker.

- Kai

[ellaenchanting]

Entranced Friday Night Girl Flirt Update!

New info:

Where/when will we meet?

Let’s all meet on Friday night at 6pm in the consuite without food. (That will either be on the 2nd or 3rd floor- you should be able to figure it out pretty quickly once we’re all there.) Plans are to get a headcount, go over basic rules, and then carpool or Uber to the restaurant and be there for our reservation at 6:30. Please get there on time or a bit early so we can get a good headcount.

Where are we going?

Current plans are to go to Szechwan Kingdom on 545 Waukegan Road Northbrook, IL 60062. It’s about 15 minutes away from con. They have vegetarian options and their menu is on their website.

What if I REALLY need to get back to con by the start of evening activities at 8?

If you REALLY need to be back in time, we are likely going to send an early bird scouting team out to make sure things are good with the reservation and also hopefully get their orders started ASAP. If you need to be an early bird, please contact @dommestic to coordinate with other early birds (or contact me if you can’t reach her). 

What time will the event be over?

I’m aiming to leave around 8ish. But if anyone wants to linger at the restaurant I won’t stop you.

What should I wear?

Whatever makes you feel fantastic! I’m going to be wearing a dress but you can wear whatever you’d like as long as it’s appropriate for a public space.

Should I bring cash?

I love you all, but I would love you so much more if you brought cash to pay your bill with. Yes, please bring cash.

Does this event have an amazing cohost?

@sex-obsessed-lesbian has graciously offered to cohost and to demonstrate her enviable flirting technique.

How will I know who is interested in scening/relationships/sexy times vs. who is flirting for sport?

Girl, I’ve got you covered. We’ve developed a glow bracelet hanky code. Come on time to the 6pm meetup to get a full explanation and first bracelet dibs.

What if I don’t want to flirt at all and just want to be around feminine energy?

I’m good with it but- realize that this IS a flirting event and you have a likelihood of being flirted at in some point of the evening. If you can’t handle that gracefully or can’t be respectful at an event that’s not catered to you, please don’t come. Otherwise you are welcome (although you may want to hang out with other non-flirters at the event). 

What if I am awkward at flirting?

95% of all queer women flirt awkwardly. You’ll be fine. 

I have another question!

Feel free to send me any other questions. My asks are open.

Original post:

Hey girl/lady/femme-type person!

Do you want to flirt with other girls/ladies/femme folks at Entranced? Then come to our all-girl flirting meetup.

Why? It is the most quintessentially queer experience to want to flirt with other women but feel nervous about how they’ll respond to it or if you’re overstepping. So why not have an event where everyone who attends is at least nominally interest in flirting with other femme types? Come, hang out, meet some cool people, and potentially practice your mad flirting skillz.

When? I’m currently aiming for Friday night at dinner. I’m open to suggestions though.* Tentative plan- meet in the lobby at 6 or at the restaurant at 6:30. If you want up-to-date plans, send me your contact info/Skype handle and I’ll make sure you’re up to date.  (Also- feel free to propose a better plan.)

Will there be an awesome keynote speech? With lots of puns?

Stay tuned.

Can I come if I’m trans/genderqueer/femme in some other way?

Absolutely. If you identity as a woman or femme or genderqueer/non-binary but femme-leaning or any other related identity, you’re very welcome.

What if I don’t want trans or non-binary folks there?

Thanks for voicing your concern!

You’re disinvited.

What if I’m a butch chick and being called femme is weird for me?

You’re definitely invited. Please come please?

What if  I don’t identify as queer/a lesbian/bisexual and I just like flirting with girls?

I mean this in the most loving, supportive, sisterly way possible: I honestly don’t give a fuck what your official sexual orientation is. If you want to flirt with girls you can come. No pressure to identify any particular way or do anything else with girls besides flirt with them. (Keep in mind, though, people may also be looking for scene partners/other partners at the event so- if you get hit on and you’re not interested, be kind about it, ‘kay?)

Can I bring my cis male friend? No

But he’s lovely!

I’m sure he is! This event is designed to be for women and people who lean towards femme identities only. But feel free to hang out with or flirt with dudes for the rest of con. Guys are great! Just not at this particular event.

Trans men or genderqueer masculine? Look- I’m not here to police people’s gender. Look at the description and if it seems like the right space for you. I’m not going to kick you out.

Can I be creepy and handsy?

Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk. We’ll abide by the same consent standards as the rest of con.

Who can I contact with questions/ideas?

Hi there! Please let me know any questions or ideas you have!

Tagging @sex-obsessed-lesbian @arihi @dommestic @lily-ackerman @zanythoughts @sleepnowkay@meltinggoldanddippingthingsinit @enscenic @pollyannadom @daja-the-hypnokitten @thehypnobunny @fractionatedpenguins @entrancedhypnocon@khatsha @silentstream9 @jukeboxemcsa @dreamytigergirl @ultinath @llewellyn-lionheart @kitty-sylvie @bunbunlittleone @jungle4566 @ab0ut---blank @cleavagepool @anyone else who wants to come. Feel free to invite friends and repost!

*Also open to suggestion, if you play your cards right. ;)